Airlines question idea to send Sydney ATCs to WSI during curfew

According to Beckett, A4ANZ has doubts that closing Sydney’s tower during curfew hours of 11pm to 5am would be an optimal solution.

“One of the concerns we have is that even though planes aren’t scheduled to land between those curfew hours, there’s lots of aircraft being moved around. There’s lots of maintenance that happens after hours,” he said.

“A flight that lands the last flight in might be a domestic flight and land at the domestic terminal – but the first thing tomorrow morning, that plane could be flying to Vanuatu. So, they tow it from one terminal to the other, and they cross the runways.

“It’s really important that we have eyes on what’s happening in the sky to give those people moving very big aircraft around the protection that they need.”

The news comes as Sydney Airport has suffered highly publicised delays and disruptions, with Airservices figures showing ground delay minutes were almost 40 per cent higher than average at Kingsford Smith last month.

Kingsford Smith’s air traffic control tower has seen highly publicised staffing issues in recent months, with reports that its controllers, on average, take more sick leave than at any other major Australian airport.

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“We do want the assurances that everything will be up to scratch. Now, we know that they slow down departures and arrivals to keep the airspace safe, and so that’s when you often see these delays and cancellations of flights,” said Beckett.

“Our concern has been about the efficiency, and we won’t pre-empt any of the investigations that are going on at the moment, but if you look at the month of August, more than 100,000 passengers had their flights disrupted because Airservices Australia didn’t have enough people at work.”

Beckett said the working group, convened in August, is a positive step towards resolving the issues with Sydney air traffic control.

“We felt that we were talking until we were blue in the face about the considerable delays and cancellations that were occurring because Airservices didn’t have enough people in the air traffic control tower,” he said.

“We are finally glad that this workstream is being put together, and it’s really important that Airservices step up, that they make sure that there are enough air traffic controllers. We’ll work with them to try and get through this – just yelling at them is not going to make Airservices do any better.

“We have to get in there and help them where we can, but at the end of the day, this problem’s been going on for a number of years, and the buck needs to stop with Airservices.

“They need to make sure that they are supporting their team, and there are enough people to keep our airspace safe and efficient.”

An Airservices spokesperson said the air navigation service provider “continually reviews its service delivery arrangements to ensure they are safe, efficient and fit for purpose”.

“As with all of our operations, staffing and resourcing decisions are driven by safety requirements, traffic demand and operational need,” the spokesperson said.

“Any changes to air traffic services at Sydney Airport would be subject to industry consultation, thorough safety assessment processes, including approval by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), and would be communicated through normal channels. Safety of air navigation remains the paramount consideration in any service delivery decision we make.

“Airservices is enhancing our training pipeline to add further controllers to improve roster depth, has put resilience measures in place that make it easier to call on additional staff when needed, and is working to address rostering issues that reduce the flexibility of our workforce.”

Airservices is offering bonus overtime for controllers who pick up extra shifts during the September-October school holidays.